Some thoughts on various aspects of the recent film The Green Hornet

1.) Michael Gondry: Despite what some of the reviews I’ve read may lead one to believe, this is not the worst movie ever made. It is, however, the worst Michael Gondry movie ever made. But then, Gondry’s filmography so far includes Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep and Be Kind Rewind—great films, all. If Green Hornet ended up anywhere in the general ballpark of any of those, it would likely be the greatest superhero film ever made.

His directing credit aside, this isn’t really a Michael Gondry film. He wrote or co-wrote the three above, while all he did here was direct, and he reportedly didn’t have final cut of the movie…that belonged to writer, producer and star Seth Rogen.

Rogen and Gondry are two talents whose work I’ve enjoyed immensely, the latter’s a lot more than the former’s, but they are strange talents to mix. Not so much peanut butter and chocolate as wasabi and chocolate—a unique, interesting combination that piques your interest, excites you a little and, while ultimately not very good, it’s still something you’re glad you tried.

I’d really like to see an all-Gondry superhero movie—something probably impossible with this particular property, given that it’s been in some form of development for, I don’t know, 96 years now…?—but his little touches are nice, and I sort of enjoyed playing the little game of “Is this Gondry? Or Rogen? Or something left over from an earlier version?” with everything sort of cool that popped up in the movie.

2.) Seth Rogen: Even slimmed down and in occasionally doing some serious dramatic acting, action hero is well outside Rogen’s abilities. Rogen is apparently well aware of his limitations, however, which probably explains why he and co-writer Evan Goldberg (his Superbad and Pineapple Express co-writer) crafted a set of circumstances under which the “hero” of the film is of the sort that Rogen could play.

His Britt Reid is a hard-partying, womanizing rake of the filmic Tony Stark variety. Rogen doesn’t look as hot as Robert Downey Jr.? Maybe not, but his Britt is rich.

Rogen doesn’t look like he could beat all that many dude’s asses, or that he spent his entire life working out and training in martial arts, Bruce Wayne-style, does it? Well, that’s fine, because his Green Hornet becomes a hero on a lark with zero training, and does very little in the way of ass-beating anyway—he mostly just kicks guys in the face after Kato has beaten them unconscious or when Kato is holding them.

I thought it was kind of clever how Rogen and Goldberg tore apart the Green Hornet character and concept, and rebuilt it into something perfect for Rogen.

3.) Jay Chou: Of all the principal actors, Chou was the one I knew the least about—IMDB tells me he was in Curse of the Golden Flower, playing one of the princes, so I guess I saw him in a movie before, although I don’t recall his performance in particular from that film (I guess that’s what happens when you co-star with Gong Li, Chow Yun-Fat, a cast of hundreds, a cast of computer-generated hundreds more, and opulent costumes and sets).

I thought he did quite well, and was probably the most charismatic actor in the film, surprisingly enough. Kato, as presented here, is a pretty dynamite character—he’s basically brilliant at just about everything, and by a few twists of fate is stuck in the shadow of Britt Reid by day and The Green Hornet by night. Rogen and Goldberg make that a pretty big plot point, and the film shares more in common with the buddy cop movie formula than the superhero movie formula.

Chou holds up his scenes opposite Rogen and the other bigger stars just fine, and the action scenes featuring him are pretty spectacular. He sells it all well: He makes all the amazing things he’s given to do seem believable.


4.) Christoph Waltz: I was surprised by how funny Waltz’s performance turned out to be in this film, as almost every single review I read mentioned how disappointing his work in this film was compared to his performance in Inglourius Basterds.

He plays the villain Chudnofsky (The person I saw the film with asked if he was an original character or from the TV show or from the comics or radio, and I had no idea).

I enjoyed the character and his performance of him. I particularly liked the reversal at the beginning, in which James Franco tries to communicate to him how he’s not really all that scary and, when he has a big gun pointed at his head, how he could maybe be scarier.

It’s a neat scene, and while the question of whether or not Chudnofsky is sufficiently scary seemed to have been settled in it, I liked the way it was apparently gnawing at him, as later in the film he seems to take Franco’s advice to heart and, after being bested by the Green Hornet a few times, he starts to transition into being a supervillain.

In that way, he’s quite akin to this Green Hornet—both are characters that exist in “the real world,” but insist on acting like characters from a comic book or superhero movie, even though that seems incredibly impractical and pretty much everyone around them thinks it’s kind of insane.


5.) Cameron Diaz: Diaz does what she was apparently called in to do—be pretty, provide a female name to put on the poster, play a character that fills in a plot hole and gives the two male leads something else to fight over—and does fine at it, but it’s a nothing role, and she’s wasted in it.

It wouldn’t be too hard to write the character out of the film completely, really, and her presence is mostly uncomfortable. That plot hole I mentioned is that while Britt and Kato are very enthusiastic about playing superheroes and fighting crime, they know absolutely nothing about crime or the city, and so Diaz’s character—who applies for a job at Britt’s paper, noting her major in journalism and minor in criminology—works up a character profile for the Green Hornet in the name of research, which Britt and Kato then use as a road map to becoming scourges of the underworld.

It’s an okay idea, reinforcing the central gag of the characters’ career as crime-fighters—they have no idea what they’re doing—but the way it’s executed is sort of weak, and it seemed glaringly unrealistic to me. Not that the movie is all that realistic in the first place, but the way she extrapolated a huge plan from the Green Hornet’s first minor act of vandalism was a bigger suspension of disbelief for me than all the little things.


6.) Racial politics: The Green Hornet is a rich white dude with an Asian butler/chauffeur who works for him during the day and puts on a mask to serve as his sidekick at night, without so much as a costume or superhero identity. That might not have been a very big problem in the ‘30s and ‘40s, but it’s kind of hard to avoid dealing with at this point.

Refreshingly, it’s not even an issue in this movie. In fact, I don’t remember Britt or anyone else making even a joking allusion to Kato being Asian (The first issue of Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet series from Dynamite, which was adapted from Smith’s screenplay for the film, had the Green Hornet joking with Kato about his people supposedly being good at being math—you know, short people).

Kato just happens to be Asian in this, and is presented as Britt’s partner both in his civilian identity and in his superhero identity. Actually, Kato here is the Green Hornet. He literally does everything for Britt, whom he really only needs as money man, muse and friend.


7.) Sexual politics: Okay, this was sort of unexpected, but remember a while back when there was all that coverage of that goofy study about how today’s superheroes as seen in film are bad role models for boys, in part because of how they treat women?

Well, Britt Reid is another one of those heroes. Oddly, while his character grows up a little during the course of the film, he doesn’t grow up all that much.

The way he treats Cameron Diaz’s character is downright strange, particularly when later in the film she mentions suing him for sexual harassment after Incident #78 or so of Things He Does That Could Get Him Sued For Sexual Harassment.

I did like the fact that the Britt Reid character never actually “wins” her. Even when she’s brought into the fold of his and Kato’s superhero life, and when she becomes a third party, she never stops being somewhat repulsed by Britt.

Also, after seeing decades of film in which the schlubby, old or otherwise unattractive character gets a girl clearly out of his league by virtue of the actor playing the character also being the writer, producer or director, it was nice to see Seth Rogen’s character get shot down so hard.

Unfortunately, Kato doesn’t get the girl either, despite putting in a lot of effort. The Asian guy never gets the white girl in Hollywood!


8.) Violence: Chris Sims is right—the movie is extremely violent. Much of that violence lends itself to the cartoonish, but Green Hornet and Kato wreak an incredible amount of destruction throughout this film, destroying fleets of cars—many of them police cars—and taking dozens of lives. It’s fitting for their approach to crime-fighting—heroes who pose as villains—but it was certainly surprising, bordering on shocking, to see some of that violence. Like when Britt was kicking that one dude in the face after Kato was holding him down, or the way in which Kato disposes of the villain (Yow!).

I’m not complaining; it was one more way in which the film differentiated itself from a lot of other superhero films.


9.) My favorite parts: They’re both in the trailer, although not set-up quite that well in the trailer: Chou’s Kato using Bruce Lee’s one-inch punch and Chou’s Kato kicking Rogen’s Britt just so, sending him flying backwards through that tiny little window.


10.) The TV theme: I was a little surprised that the theme song of the 1966 TV show made such a tiny appearance, late in the film (it plays for a few seconds during the epilogue). That is a pretty great theme, and is probably right below “Bruce Lee” on a list of enduringly awesome things that series gave us.

On the other hand, Quentin Tarrantino and RZA used it to such great effect in Kill Bill, that maybe the makers of Green Hornet were a little gun-shy about using a song that is now identified with Kill Bill in the minds of most of their potential audience.


11.) Green Hornet II?: Given the troubled production and the thousands of years in development hell, the film seemed rather confident about the possibilities of the sequel.

Certainly the epilogue could simply be an optimistic ending, implying that Kato and the Green Hornet’s weird quest for extremely violent, half-assed justice would go on, but it promised a sequel just as surely as that shot at the end of 1989’s Batman, where we see Batman posing on a building, a Bat-signal shining in the sky.

The film did much better than expected—and, quality-wise, was much better than expected, I think—but I don’t know if that means it did well enough to earn a sequel.

I wouldn’t mind watching another Green Hornet with these characters and actors, but it’s not the sort of franchise that demands a sequel in the way that other comic book superhero movies do.

Like, you know how every time a Batman movie, you immediately started thinking about what villains they could use in the next one? Yeah, I don’t feel like that after seeing Green Hornet—I can’t think of a single Green Hornet villain. I don’t even know if he has villains.

If they do make another one, they should give Kato a villain to fight that knows kung fu; the fighting in here is pretty neat, but there's no really exciting kung fu battle, just Kato tearing people apart.

12.) I still want to see all those other Green Hornets: As I said at the beginning, I’d still kind of like to see an all-Gondry superhero film, and I can’t help wonder what this would have looked like had he worked with, say, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and a different star.

I was really excited when Stephen Chow was attached to direct and star as Kato, but that was a short time.

I was kind of excited when Jet Li was announced as being attached to play Kato at one point. (How is it that Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan were never attached at any point?)

Hell, I still wouldn’t mind seeing Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet. Thanks to Dynamite, I can at least read the script for that one, and imagine what a film version might have looked like.

Two reviews of recent #2s

Aladdin: Legacy of the Lost #2 (Radical Publishing) This second of the three over-sized issues comprising Radical’s first Aladdin miniseries departs more, um, radically from the familiar story of the familiar character. This section features Aladdin trying to woo the princess and losing both her and the lamp to the wicked vizier, but there are some unusual tangents taken.

One is the now more prominent role given to Sinbad the Sailor, who guides our hero down into a secret city of humanoid monsters below Shamballah, and then provides Al with a ride to the evil sorcerer’s flying hideout.

The other is the person Al and Sinny (Just trying out an old-school Marvel-style nickname for Sinbad, don’t mind me) consult in the secret city, a devil-like figure called the mantis queen, who resembles a sort of insect centaur lady thing.

The art in this issue is particularly…curious, as Patrick Reilly draws the first half and Stjepan Sejic draws the second half. The two each boast individual enough styles that their work doesn’t really go well together (it’s pretty obvious when the artists switch), and given the fact that this is a limited series, it’s curious that Radical split the art duties up at all, rather than simply waiting for a single artist to finish the story (or devising a studio system of some sort to make the whole thing look more consistent).

At any rate, both artists obviously have decent chops, but aside from some neat monster designs here and there, I was rather unimpressed with both. Too many scenes lacked any real sense of wonder, while the subject matter of Ian Edginton’s script seems to demand jaw-dropping visual after jaw-dropping visual. Some of it looks quite nice, but none of it was particularly magical, stop-and-stare work of the sort you’d expect for an Aladdin and his magic lamp story.

For example, see that Arthur Suydam cover above? The interiors don’t look anything like that. I’m not always sold on Suydam’s work, but that image certainly has a nice storybook quality about it, looking like a modern, computer-heavy comic book version of the sort of book plate illustration that one might have seen in an copy of a Thousand and One Nights collection from early last century or so.


Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet #2 (Dynamite Entertainment) After having established the fact that the original Green Hornet and Kato have retired after completely defeating all crime in their city, and that the original Hornet has a young, rich, handsome, in-shape son with no direction in his life in the previous issue, this next chunk of Smith’s screenplay-turned-comic book miniseries takes the next expected steps.

For example, if you weren’t quite sure if Britt Reid Jr. start wearing Green by the end of this series, this issue lets us know that he was also a valedictorian with a 4.0 average and six kick-boxing trophies. And he doesn’t respect his father because he doesn’t think the old guy’s ever done anything worthwhile in his life (the Britt the Younger doesn’t know that Britt the Elder was the Hornet).

Despite the transparency of certain elements of Smith’s plotting, the scripting is fairly decent, and this issue gives the two Britts a lot more panel-time together, as well as introducing the children of Kato and the Yakuza boss we saw the original GH and Kato take down in the previous issue.

Johnathan Lau’s artwork remains serviceable, but there are a few instances in which the storytelling is quite confused, during the set-up to the issue’s big action set piece.

Beyond what charms Smith, Lau and Phil Hester’s book might have, however, a great deal of the fun of this project remains contemplating the hypothetical movie the story could have lead to, if the studios ended up using Smith’s pitch. What I found interesting on that front this time around was the fact that both Britt Reid’s have pretty meaty roles so far, the pair of them taking part in a big ninja brawl while in their civilian identities at the end of this issue. With two generations of crimefighters in the story, if this were a movie it may have provided a fairly unique opportunity to spotlight an older, middle-aged actor as an action hero/superhero star while simultaneously having a younger, hotter lead. (And the fact that the new Kato is a woman means they could have cast a middle-aged Asian action hero like Jet Li, whose name I believe was being tossed around early on, and a beautiful young actress in the role).

I’d advise trade-waiting unless you’re very well off (I don’t think it’s worth $4 as opposed to $3), but in terms of overall quality, I think it remains fun on both its intended level and the whole, more-abstract, let’s-think-about-the-differences-between-comics-and-film-while –reading level.

Alex Ross’ cover sure is boring this time around though (also, why is the background flying by as if the car was in motion, if GH and Kato are just cold standing there next to it?)

Good thing Dynamite published 40 other covers.

(Just kidding. The only other one I can find is this one by John Cassady: ).

(Kinda sorta) review: Green Hornet: Year One #1

Batman: Year One had a very specific conceit, built right into the title—it was not only set during the first year of Batman’s career, but encompassed the entirety of that first year.

While not writer Frank Miller’s most popular or influential Batman comic, it was certainly a pretty influential one, putting the term “Year One” into the comic book lexicon. Of course, repeated usage of the term and the various variations of it over the years have devalued it: There was Batman: Year Two, Batgirl: Year One, JLA: Year One and Robin: Year One…the same “year” covered in “Batman Year Three.” There was that one summer where every DC character with a title got a “Year One” annual. Paul Pope had his Batman: Year One Hundred riff, and, more recently, Nightwing, Green Arrow, The Teen Titans, Black Lightning and even Metamorpho got stories branded thusly.

In fact, the term has lost its meaning enough that DC seems to have abandoned it completely, with Geoff Johns-penned origin stories going instead with Secret Origin.

Dynamite Entertainment using the “Year One” branding for their second Green Hornet miniseries, Green Hornet: Year One struck me as a little odd, since its thus far been such a DC Comics term, but maybe that Jack Black and Michael Cera Bible movie reclaimed it from DC.

In any case, all “Year One” stories that don’t, in fact, focus on the first year of a character’s fictional career tend to bug me a little. If it’s not actually about the first year, why not call it something else? (An insect-themed would be cool, I think, like Green Hornet: Chrysalis or something would be rad, wouldn’t it? No? Just me?)

So this is Green Hornet: Year One, which jumps around through time: 1921, 1931, 1934, 1938, 1926. It’s the origin story of both Britt Reid and Kato, told as separate, parallel threads, which eventually unite in Chicago in 1938, when we see the pair with their masks and start fighting crime with kung fu and gadgets. The exact point where the two threads intersect isn’t revealed in this first issue.

I’m happy to report that the only thing that bugged me about the book was wondering about the sub-title. (Well, that and the need for so many Green Hornet comics in the market in so short a period of time. And the $3.99 price tag.)

Matt Wagner writes (and earns an “art direction” credit…as well as providing one of the four covers), and Aaron Campbell provides the pencil and ink art.

The story is fairly straightforward and has few surprises, but then, it doesn’t really need much in the way of surprises or even a terribly unique approach: The Green Hornet is a fairly generic mask, fedora and long coat hero, one engaged in fairly generic mask, fedora and long coat hero type of crime-fighting activities.

Wagner does hone in one aspect particular to the character, his masked chauffeur sidekick, and transforms the relationship from hero and sidekick to a pair of heroes…at least judging by the way panel-space and attention is equally divided in this issue.

While I would probably have been more into this book if Wagner drew it as well (simply because I’m a big fan of his art), Campbell’s stuff is pretty solid. It’s highly representational and quite detailed. I’ve read two Dynamite Green Hornet comics in about as many weeks, and this one is definitely the better-looking in terms of art and colors. It’s also the better-written of the two.

These guys don't even have to change clothes before going to a parade or pub today.

Well, except for maybe Kato...

Review: Kevin Smith's Green Hornet #1

The first issue of Dynamite Entertainment’s new Green Hornet miniseries is by far the best comic book writing I’ve seen from Kevin Smith in about eight years.

I’m afraid that speaks more to the weakness of Smith’s recent comics output since he returned from his break (the second half of Spider-Man/Black Cat, Batman: Cacophony) then it does to the strengths of Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet #1.

In fact, the script for this issue isn’t exactly new, as it’s reportedly based on Smith’s script for a Green Hornet movie that he’s been attached to in various capacities over the years. The credit page gives Smith a “script by” credit, and Smith’s old Green Arrow pencil artist Phil Hester a “breakdowns by” credit, with artist Jonathan Lau handling pencils (Colors, provided by Jonathan Lau, are apparently put right on top of the pencils, with no inking).

The book’s unusual creation process is, I think, alone worth piquing a comics fan’s interest—if nothing else, it’s interesting to consider a comic book adapted from an unused film script for a never-made film adapting a superhero from the radio, TV and comics. And to wonder how Smith’s writing differs between the two media.

In the past, I would have guessed that his film work tends to be quite a bit better, as there’s so much money involved, and every word we eventually hear in it had a lot more filters to pass through, a lot more collaboration. His “View Askew-iverse” movies vs. his comics in the same fictional universe and starring the same characters tend to attest to this…in general (Oni’s four-part Jay and Silent Bob miniseries with Duncan Fegredo, which Smith partially cannibalized for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, being the exception, but then that film was by far Smith’s worst).

Is that why this is better than, say, the first issue of Batman: Cacophony, then? That Smith worked a lot harder on it, went through more drafts, and was much more careful, whereas that Batman miniseries was a paycheck waiting to happen, Smith a star writer immune to aggressive editing? Or was the Smith a few years ago a better writer than the Smith of today? (Intense laboring over his early Marvel work is certainly one way to explain the delays). Or maybe there’s something about the color green and the presence of Phil Hester that brings out the best in Smith?

I don’t know, but, like I said, these things are fun to consider. Well, they’re fun for me to consider, and that’s all that really matters here.

The book opens with a “Then” caption, and a sequence of The Green Hornet and Kato suiting up, getting in their sweet ride with green headlights, and then sneaking up on a meet between two rival crime families…which they proceed to break up, effectively ending organized crime in their fictional city.

It’s around page 17 that Britt Reid tells his wife Janet that he’s completed his mission, and would be hanging up the green fedora for good, in order to spend more time with his family, which includes a young son.

You probably know where this story’s going…and if not, the “Today” caption on page 21 oughta do the trick.

Britt Junior, a young, rich, in-shape scion of his father’s fortune is a layabout with no direction in life, a source of tabloid fodder. This is apparently going to be something of a Green Hornet: The Next Generation sort of story, as you could probably guess if you looked closely at the Kato in Alex Ross’s cover (or at all at the one in J. Scott Campbell’s cover) and noticed that this Kato’s a she.

Rated on the spectrum of Kevin Smith comics, this one’s somewhere in the middle—nowhere near as bad as the more terrible, even embarrassing comics to carry his byline, but not up there with his better work (His Oni stuff, Daredevil and Green Arrow) either.

It’s pretty generic stuff, but not necessarily bad generic. It’s a fairly straightforward, superhero movie-serious take on a rather derivative hero, free of any big mistakes or glitches, and thankfully able to avoid any of the unfortunate retrograde racial aspects that the Kato relationship can threaten (It’s been a long while since I’ve checked in with it, but I thought Dynamite’s Lone Ranger revival similarly did a good job of making the Ranger/Tonto relationship work well in the 21st century).

It’s also, remarkably, thankfully free of many of the weaknesses common to Smith’s work—I don’t recall seeing any gay jokes, or randomly applied sex jokes or juvenile potty talk and many of the pages are even free of Smith’s verbose scripting. Only a couple of pages between Britt and Janet look like the panels are threatening to burst under the weight of the dialogue balloons.

The art is clearly laid-out and easy to read. I might have preferred Hester himself pencil it, but that may simply be because his art is a known quantity to me, and I like it (And I’m curious what his Green Hornet and Kato would have looked like).

Lau’s art is at its best when the men have masks on, but I liked his elongated figures and the action scenes were presented well. Like the script, there’s nothing really bad or wrong to complain about regarding the art.

All in all, it’s not bad, but given how many Green Hornet comics Dynamite has planned for the near future, I think they needed more of a creative homerun than this issue provided if they plan to sustain interest in the franchise.

Of course, maybe the plan is simply to have enough series in the works to sell a ton of comics and trades around the time of the eventual movie’s release, in which case the simple fact that this isn’t toxic or radioactive is a triumph.



********************

By the way, I think DC should totally do this with Smith’s script for a Superman movie from the late nineties. Maybe with Keith Giffen doing breakdowns and Kevin Maguire penciling…? It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember liking it (better than Superman Returns, that’s for sure!) and there being some neat, JLI-like scenes between L-Ron and Lex Luthor or Brainiac.

A black mark against Barack Obama

Senator Barack Obama was in my home town of Columbus, Ohio again today, and this time his visit fell on a day I happened to have off, so I figured I would take the opportunity to see him speak in person.

Me and about 60,000 other people.

The appearance was set to take place at the Ohio Statehouse, in downtown Columbus, and the crowd was among the biggest I've ever seen here...at least one that didn't involve an Ohio State University football game. A gigantic, Byzantine line of supporters snaked in bizarre configurations in out out of blocks and alleys to the point I had no idea where it began or ended, and were it not for some friends who allowed me to cut with them, I would have never even figured out how to get in the proper line.

It was a warm, sunny day, particularly for November. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and the temperature flirted with 60 degrees. A diverse group of people—of all ages, races, and fashion senses—were there, and everyone seemed in a good mood. I didn't even see any protesters of any kind, extremely unusual for a political event of any kind here.

A pastor gave a prayer, the pledge of alleigance was given, the mayor spoke, the governor spoke, a Democratic candidate for attorney general spoke. The national anthem was sung. Then Michelle Obama appeared from inside the Statehouse, and walked down the steps to the podium. A sea of arms shot up, as people tried to capture pictures on their cellphones and digital cameras.

She spoke for a few minutes, introducing her husband, and then he appeared in the door, leading a daughter in each hand as he descended the steps, embraced his wife, and then took the podium and she and their daughters left.

Obama plunged into the latest version of his stump speech, which was recently altered to include Vice President Dick Cheney's endorsement of his rival Senator John McCain, taking some lighthearted jabs at Cheney, while admonishing the crowd with his standard, "We don't need that; we just need to vote," when the booing started at Cheney's name.

And then this man so often praised for his rhetoric and eloquence made his blunder.

Cheney's endorsement had given Obama more ammunition for the John McCain = Third Bush Term line of attack, and after mentioning the fact that McCain voted with Bush 90-percent of the time and now supported Bush's economic policies completely, Obama said, "That's not a maverick, that's a sidekick."

As the crowd chuckled, he went on, "He's like Kato to The Green Lantern."

I know, right? Can you believe Obama confused The Green Hornet with The Green Lantern?! Does America really want a president who can't tell the difference between The Green Hornet and Green Lantern?

That's not change we can believe in.